I Ran (So Far Away)
by scoutfinches
Summary: Jean Louise Finch, now a seasoned reporter for the New York Times, embarks on a journey to Tulsa with her husband, Dill to interview two teenagers, Ponyboy Curtis and Cherry Valence, about the the classism conflict in town, which ceased when "a few kids got killed."
1. And Your Bird Can Sing

_A new writing journey had brought Dill and I to Tulsa, an unexpected destination by all means._

I had to write an article about classism, and apparently, three boys were killed over just that. I had yet to hear any other story similar from anywhere else.

All I knew was a rumor; and all The New York Times saw was a story.

It was a short drive for our family of four from Maycomb. Well, compared to our other ventures. And the fact that we took a plane to see my father in town contributed to everyone's newfound patience.

Maudie, our eight year old daughter, was reading a book. Charlie, our four year old son, was content to staring at the plains. Dill was driving, and I was fiddling with the map.

"Do you have any idea where we're supposed to meet... Mr. Curtis?"

"Somewhere in Tulsa, and we've still got three hours, sweetheart." Dill said, absentmindedly, while starting at the signs ahead.

"Isn't he only seventeen?" I asked. It was a strange thing of me to forget the names of my next subjects. And, well, everything about them.

"Yes, he is. Do you remember his name?"

"No.. It started with a P. I know that much."

Dill laughed, "It was a weird one too." His laugh and voice didn't change with the years, but however, he did get a few wrinkles, as had I. But that added to his beauty. He only aged gracefully, like a fine wine.

"Well, it obviously was, if I can't remember it either."

"Miss Valence is older. Miss Sherri Valence." He reminded me. We had everything about her down, including the fact that she was deeply in love with Mr. Curtis, a younger man.

This whole thing made me remember an experience we had in the city, years and years ago, before Maudie and Charlie were even born. We met a boy downtown, and that's how we reunited, by his bidding.

"You think Dallas is down there?" I wondered.

"The chances are slim, darling." Dill answered me.

My heart shattered deep down at that thought. I missed Dallas, and I had so much more to tell him.

I sighed, hoping we'd get to Tulsa by sundown.

"Mommy, are we there yet?" Maudie asked.

"Soon, sweetheart. We'll be there."

The radio played a Beatles song, one of my favorites. It was just released on their new album earlier in the summer.

 _"You say you've seen the seven wonders, and you bird is green. But you can't see me. You can't see me..."_

One of the many things about me is this: I'm one of the oldest Beatles fangirls anyone will ever meet. Even my husband would agree, and it's made me quite popular with the interns in New York. Maybe that's the reason for their success; they can connect with someone, even a 'crabby, middle aged writer' like myself.

When we all saw the sign welcoming us to Oklahoma, the four of us took a collective sigh of relief.

 _We would finally get answers._


	2. Paperback Writer

_I hoped that this would all go well. I hadn't talked about this since it happened.. Well, I guess I did, because this is all my fault._

The manuscript for the book was on my bedroom desk, right by where Soda and I slept at night. I spent most nights at Cherry's now, but I liked to keep refuge with my brother every once in a while. The relationship between the three of us was all well and almost perfect. Sadly, for Soda, he had yet to find a girl who loved him like Cherry loved me.

My romance with Cherry was a pure, utter accident. We both never thought we'd end up together; our age gap was too wide for kids our age. She started helping out my English teacher one day, and kept coming back. I was grateful for her generosity and thought it was purely for that. Two weeks passed by with nothing eventful, until finally, it was my turn for an evaluation on my progress. She told me I was doing well, better than most of the class, since I bounced back after the accidents. With the social barriers taken down, we didn't need to worry about awkward situations, and she asked if we could watch a movie at the drive in.

The rest is history.

And so, I decided to bring her with me to my interview. It's not even until tomorrow, but it didn't stop me from becoming anxious. It didn't stop me from remembering; it didn't stop me from screaming at the dinner table.

"Curtis? Are you all right?' It was Mrs. Valence. I forgot where I was for a few minutes, and realized I stuffed my face with green bean casserole in an effort to soothe myself.

"I'm fine, thank you for asking." My head was spinning. I wanted to get up and leave, but for the sake of my rocky reputation within the Valence family, I only drank from my glass of water.

While they were in awe that I could write a full length memoir in only a matter of a few days, they were _not_ in awe about anything else concerning me.

They always compared me to Bob, Cherry's former boyfriend (which only brought back more nightmarish memories). They always told me I was too young and that I was too rough, despite the slow but sure softening Cherry was giving me. They forgot there were no 'socs' or 'greasers' anymore. The deaths of three people, all of whom influenced other lives deeply, brought it all to an end.

I was happy to know dinner was over within seconds. Mr. Valence was washing the dishes, leaving Cherry and I free to discuss the interview, and anything else on our minds.

We knew the woman who was coming to speak with us, not in person, but in articles. She was fired from her first newspaper due to a controversial article we found in one of Dally's drawers after he died.

 _The Wrongs of Racism: by Jean Louise Finch_

It apparently took a long time to get another job, as her hiatus from writing lasted almost two years. But after that, she began writing for the New York Times and unloaded the same type of material upon the American people. She was a brave woman, and she took on stories most other reporters would never touch. She wrote news articles about almost anything, from politics to apple pie recipes to metaphors about mockingbirds, which was also a major symbol in her own memoir, _To Kill a Mockingbird._

We spent almost all night trying to read the memoir, and about Dill. He was the little boy who stayed with his aunt in Maycomb over the summer; in the end, during her break from writing, they got married and had a daughter.

Maybe we focused on her instead of our impending questions instead, because she seemed like a welcoming figure. She was going to change Tulsa in many ways, whether we liked them or not. She had influence, a thing that only came with death for Dally, Johnny, and Bob.

Another thing I found out through Soda was that our memoirs, Mrs. Harris' and my own, were competing for the number one spot on the bestseller list. I had no idea of it's success, but I only noticed one thing: Soda went back to earn his GED. Darry, our older brother, was making our lives slightly more comfortable, with less money than ever to work with.

It was a miracle. Knowing I was going to meet Jean Louise Finch... Harris, was a miracle. I knew Cherry and I were going to get something out of it somehow.

"And we thought Tulsa was the only place with problems." She sighed, leaning her head on my shoulder.

I chuckled at her comment and dogfolded the last page of the book, almost forgetting my own rule with books: it's a sin to dogfold. It didn't matter anymore. It was two in the morning.

 _The question on my mind was why Dallas kept his article by Jean Louise so dearly, and I spent the night dreaming of the possibilities._


	3. I've Just Seen a Face

_Maudie was only excited when we got there, and about pretty much nothing else._

She wasn't comfortable with a lot of things, including the fact we made it to town after sunset. It took a long while to find a hotel for the night, and even I began to lose my patience.

It was a relief when we finally got keys for the night. But not to Maudie. She was becoming more defiant with age, like I used to be. She refused to sleep near Charlie, not due to disgust but due to space issues.

"He's a blanket hog!"

After asking for an extra blanket and waiting for around twenty minutes, things finally quieted down. She slept like a baby after that.

I couldn't sleep that night. I wrote down questions for Ponyboy (whose name I finally remembered) and ended up rushing to the store to buy a copy of his memoir, _The Outsiders._

"How old are you? How old were you when this happened?"

I knew the answer to one question, but not the other. Good enough.

"How did this incident start?"

"How did you deal with the social barriers prior to this incident?"

"What did you do after the incident happened? What is your story?"

"Who did you lose and how did you lose them?"

"How do you think your life has been impacted due to this?"

 _"What do you think would have happened if none of these events occurred?"_

I handed my notebook to Dill after I was done. He was reading the memoir, and adjusted his readers before reading the paper.

"Oh, Scout, you've hit the nail on the head, like usual." He chuckled. "You're a lady and a scholar."

We hadn't realized it until then, but we stayed up late into the night. It was two in the morning.

"Dill, I think we should get some rest before tomorrow." I said, placing my notebook on my nightstand.

"I agree." He kissed me on the cheek, "Good night, dear."

"Good night."

The next morning was hectic in a way we never expected. It wasn't hectic in terms of being rushed but due entirely to our children. Maudie went and did things her way, all on her own. We only met when we were brushing our teeth. She picked out her own blouse and slacks and read through Ponyboy's memoir. It was Charlie we had to worry about. He woke up screaming, alerting everyone. For once, Maudie lifted her eyes from a book and rushed over to him.

"Char?" She looked into his eyes and asked him. He didn't answer. He cried instead.

"Mommy! Mommy!" When he was scared, he always called for me, and I scooped him up in my arms right away.

 _He's getting so big.. I can't hold him like this for much longer.._

"What's the matter, dear?"

"I had.. A good dream." He looked up at me and then looked down again; his eyes were watering. His tears were soaking my blouse.

"Then, how is there anything wrong with it?"

"Mommy.. It started good, but it got dark and scary.."

I furrowed my brows in confusion, Dill looked on and sat next to Maudie.

"Son, what happened?" He asked his son from afar, knowing he'd stay in my arms for a while longer.

"You and mommy met someone on the street.. He got shot in the end, when it got dark." His response was brief, but detailed enough for understanding.

"Was it Uncle Jem?" Dill and I wondered at the same time. Charlie shared a special connection with my brother, and Jem loved him like his own son. (Due to his heart condition, he chose not to have children with his wife. They adopted three children instead). Charlie's first vivid memory was almost losing his uncle.

We were walking together. Jem, Charlie, and I. I remembered Jem laughing, and then, he collapsed on the ground. We were lucky a paramedic was close by; he saved my brother's life. And he barely did too. Jem had to have one of the first open heart surgeries in Southern Alabama.

Of course, it made sense to wonder. But Charlie said no to that question. Instead, he said something nobody expected to hear.

"I don't know who he is. Someone was telling him to stop running, but I didn't hear his name." He nuzzled closer into me. My arms were getting tired from holding him, and I handed him to his father. After his explanation, he took refuge in Dill's arms just as he had in my own.

With a glance at my watch, I confirmed it was time to go. Then, I drove the car. And this time, I knew we were headed. There was a diner at the eastern end of town where we were supposed to meet the kids, and the road was clogged with cars.

 _"Baby you can drive my car, yes I'm gonna be a star.. Baby you can drive my car and maybe I'll love you."_

Seconds became minutes, and minutes became fractions of hours. I only kept my mind on the Beatles song on the radio; and the whole family sang along.

 _"I told that girl I can start right away, a_ _nd she said, 'Listen babe I got something to say._ _I got no car and it's breaking my heart, b_ _ut I've found a driver and that's a start.'"_

As soon as things became more run down, I knew I was heading in the right direction. When we got closer, closer, and closer, a strange sadness poured over me.

At one point, I stopped the car in the middle of an empty intersection. I was beginning to lose my composure, but kept driving anyway.

 _Atticus always said you were a bad driver.. Why didn't you believe him?_

When I parked at the diner, there were only two other cars there. One was a Thunderbird and the other was a beat up Ford. We all piled out of our own car and walked inside.

As soon as we walked in the door, a handsome boy with greased, brown hair held out his hand.

 _"My name's Ponyboy Curtis. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Harris."_


	4. A Hard Day's Night

_I had no idea why I was so petrified to go through with this._

Jean Louise shook my hand, "Nice to meet you too, Ponyboy." She was grinning ear to ear and had a beautiful smile. She brought her whole family along with her. Behind her, her husband was rounding up the children.

"And this is Cherry, my girlfriend." I gestured towards Cherry, and Jean Louise was a little shocked I brought her with me. She still smiled and shook her hand nonetheless.

"Nice to meet you as well."

Cherry blushed, "Thank you, Mrs. Harris. I've been reading your book. It's fantastic."

More 'thank yous' and you're welcomes' were said, all while Jean Louise's husband chased their son around the diner, almost in repeated circles. I admired the little boy. He was still gold, still full of life and full of energy. I know I was told to stay gold, but nothing gold can stay.

Absolutely nothing.

We found a big booth by the window to sit down. The Harris family sat on one side, and Cherry and I sat on another.

After we ordered some drinks, Jean Louise went right down to business.

"How old are you? How old were you when this happened?"

Her first question, though obvious, was a good start.

 _In other words, a slow descent into madness. Not bad._

"I was fourteen. I'm fifteen now." I sighed, still in denial. I was in denial that the seasons have changed around me, without the friends I lost.

Cherry nodded her head, "He's quite mature for his age." At seventeen, people pestered her quite a bit for dating me. She didn't care, and a whole new social barrier resulted from this incident.

Age. But to tell you the truth, it was always there anyhow.

Jean Louise wrote down everything in her notebook, smiling. "Okay.." She sipped her Coca Cola, "How did everything start? Well, how did it all blow up?"

"You mean Bob and Johnny?" I questioned her.

"Yes, tell me everything."

The little boy looked at me with pure, innocent eyes. He was gold. And I was trying to be gold. I hoped to stay gold for not just Johnny, but the little boy right in front of me, who had a whole life right before his eyes.

 _"It was worth it... Saving those little kids, their lives were worth more than mine."_

"Well, it began when my friends Johnny, Dally, and I went to the movies. We snuck in underneath the fence and didn't pay. That was where I met Cherry and one of her friends, Marcia.. Dally harassed them for a while, particularly Cherry."

Cherry laughed, "I splashed soda on him. I was pretty fed up with him."

Everyone joined in on the laugh, and I continued my story.

"Johnny and I told Dally to leave the girls alone, and he did. Though miserably. In the end, we were walking home with the girls when this.. Fancy car, not a Thunderbird, but another one comes pulling up behind us. It's Bob, Cherry's ex-boyfriend, and Marcia's... Husband Randy. They're drunk and they're angry because the girls left them so they could watch the movie. They wanted to fight with us, but Cherry ended up going with them. She doesn't like fights."

I paused and let her write. "Who's Dally?"

"Dally's a friend of ours."

She looked up at me in confusion. "He reminds me of someone I knew from New York."

"Well, maybe you met him. He lived there for three years."

She nodded her head; she looked like she had a fever she couldn't sweat out. She knew something about Dally, and I was sure of it right after that moment.

"Well.. After they went home, I got in a fight with my brother and ended up meeting Johnny at the park in a fit of rage. We tried to relax for a little while. It was late out and it was dark.. Those guys were still driving around drunk, and they saw us and were looking for a fight. They beat up Johnny and tried to drown me in a water fountain. Johnny got so angry that he.. He.. Got out a knife."

I began to shiver.

"What did he do with the knife?" Jean Louise also looked unsettled. It was then I remembered the very end of her memoir.

The same thing happened to her. She was attacked, along with her older brother, by a crazed man. He was the plaintiff in the case her father, Atticus, was working on; Atticus was part of the defense. Though her father lost the courtroom battle, this man was still embarrassed and furious that a 'rotten lawyer' stood up to him in court. He planned to get to what Atticus loved the most. The children. In the end, they were saved by their reclusive neighbor, who was doing who knows what in the middle of the night.

That man stabbed the plaintiff right in the chest with a kitchen knife. He killed him. And Johnny killed Bob in the exact same fashion.

"He.. Killed him, Mrs. Harris. He stabbed him in the chest to save me. I passed out and woke up and saw Johnny clutching the bloody knife in his hands, and I saw Bob's dead body on the ground.."

She nodded her head. "I know the feeling."

"Of what?"

"Well.. Seeing a dead man named Bob on the ground, first of all.. Second, I know what it's like to see a friend become a murderer. Boo Radley, my neighbor, and Johnny have something in common. They were mockingbirds. It's a sin to kill a mockingbird, Ponyboy."

I was beginning to feel tears brimming in my eyes.

 _Don't cry, don't cry.._

"How did you deal with the social barrier?"

"It was the way it was."

I heard the sound of a pencil scratching the paper in the notebook. I sipped my soda.

"Back to the story.. How did you deal with everything? What happened after Johnny killed Bob?"

"We ran to Jim Shepard's house.. He was one of Dally's friends. He was having a party and we knew that Dally was there, and that if anyone ever killed anyone, he was who we had to go to. He got into a few scrapes in New York.."

"Scrapes?" I wans't sure if Jean Louise was confused by the term, or if she wanted to know what happened.

"Dally used me this story about a man that one of his buddies killed all the time. His name, the man, was Henry Clinton. He was a lawyer from Alabama, where you live. He was walking down the street one afternoon, after living in New York for about a year, when a colored man comes into his office. This colored man needed a defense lawyer real soon, and a friend of his recommended Henry. Henry refused to give this man any kind of service; he was a racist, and his belief was deeper than the center of the earth. So, one of Dally's friends, who was friends with the colored man, went to Henry Clinton's office one night and slashed his throat. That was that, and Dally had to get him out of that. That man, the one who killed Henry, wasn't arrested for a long time, not until Dally died."

Her eyes widened, "I knew him."

"Henry?"

The husband, whose name I learned was Charles, said, "We both knew him. We knew he'd wind up in some kind of bind someday.. Scout here dated him for four years, and she was even gonna marry 'im! Well, once she saw his true colors... Things turned out _much_ different."

I decided to neglect the last part of the story. So much, in fact, that even Cherry knew nothing about it: Dally was the one who disposed of the body. He did so by bathing it in acid. The only evidence was a name card, which was found in the murderer's pocket six years later.

Oh, yes, Dally knew how to get _anyone_ out of a murder.

I knew one thing for sure, that Jean Louise and I were becoming friends. If we got off topic any more than we already had, the interview would never end. And it was also certain that we both knew that.

"Whew! Okay! So, after you went to the house, was Dally there?" She asked, holding her pencil in her hand.

"Yes. He gave us a loaded gun, some money, and some instructions on how to get to an abandoned church in Windrixville. We took the three fifteen train and ended up at the church a little after sunrise. Johnny left me there for a little while to get food and things from the store. Dally told him to go before the story broke out. He ended up getting three things I can remember: a week's supply of bologna, hair bleach, and a copy of _Gone With The Wind._ We cut our hair to disguise ourselves. Johnny bleached mine, and for those four days that we were there, I looked like a pageboy." I grinned, remembering when that was the least of my worries.

Jean Louise, or Scout, as I like to call her nowadays, looked on as her daughter finally made a sound. She laughed.

"I bet you looked ridiculous!"

"Well, I did. And you're right, it was a bit funny. Not at the time, though."

Both Cherry and the young daughter blushed.

"He always looks cute! Come on, Pony! Give yourself some credit!"Cherry kissed my cheek, "Tell the rest of the story!"

"We only had that bologna to eat, and I refuse to touch it again. We read from the book to pass the time.. And we also played cards. Johnny bought some cards at the store too. We gambled out leftover cigarettes in there, and Johnny won them all away from me. It was miserable. Those four days of my life were the most uneventful I ever had, but I have yet to say it was a bad thing. There were more terrible things on the horizon, and I should've been grateful to spend those days with Johnny."

Scout wrote some more down, yet again.

"Tell me, Ponyboy, what happened after you finally left the church?"

There was a lump in my throat, a pit in a stomach, and a break in my heart.

 _I didn't want to tell. Not yet, I thought. Not ever._


	5. Blackbird

I looked at him, silently waiting for an answer.

"Dally took us to Dairy Queen. And when we drove by the church, it was on fire. Dally went to investigate. Before long, Johnny and I ran in to help; there were children inside. We saved them all, but Johnny got hurt, and so did Dally. We had to go to the hospital."

I wrote more down, "Were you okay? "

"I got home first. I guess so."

"Go on. " I said, patiently.

"So.. After it all happened, we were put in the newspaper and the whole town thought we were heroes. Johnny was burned up pretty bad. I bought him a copy of Gone With The Wind. We read one in the church before we left. He couldn't read it though. He couldn't move. He was lying face down toward the floor. His back was the worst. They said he broke it And he couldn't walk ever again."

It was silent for a while. I wanted to cry with him. It was hard to watch him try to compose himself.

"Dally got out of the hospital alive. Johnny didn't."

I knew this already, but it felt much different when Ponyboy was speaking. Actually speaking with his voice, face to face with me.

"When word got out about Johnny... It was basically the end of it. The Socs and the Greasers were one, or more realistically, nothing at all."

"That's all?" I looked at Ponyboy.

He nodded his head, "That's all that happened, but people still remember everything. Parents tell the children the story to teach them lessons they'd never follow before. Children have friends from both ends of town because of this whole mess.. I just wish.. I just wish it didn't have to take two lives to happen."

I wrote the last words down and held his hand from across the table, "You're a kindred soul, Ponyboy Curtis."

"As are you, Jean Louise Finch." We were standing in front of the table, and he hugged me.

Afterwards, I walked away, thinking that I'd never speak to Ponyboy Curtis again.

 _I was wrong._


	6. The End

_I got a call from the elder Curtis brother when we made it to our hotel room._

"My brother wants to know if you'd like to come over for dinner, Mrs. Harris."

I couldn't hide my smile. I enjoyed talking to Ponyboy and was excited to see him smile, and excited to see him forget. "We'd love to. When do we need to be there? "

"Six. "

After dressing my children in their best and tying Dill's tie (as I had been since we began courting), I eagerly followed the written directions set by Darrell. We ended up in one of the more beat up neighborhoods of Tulsa, which looked like it was going under major reconstruction.

Ponyboy and Cherry stood on the porch, waving. Another boy was reading and looked up from his book. He rushed over to the car and opened my door for me.

"The name's Sodapop. Sodapop Curtis. It says so on my birth certificate!"

I laughed and took his hand, "Well, it's very nice to meet you, Sodapop."

"As to you, Scout."

He was undeniably attractive for his age. He had bright, cornflower blue eyes which shined when he smiled. Just like Dill. The only thing he was missing was the blonde hair.

He greeted Dill, and then the kids. He ended up carrying Charles on his back; he buzzed around, pretending to be an airplane. Both of the boys were having fun, laughing and shouting all the way to the front door.

The small house was full of other people. A few boys and a few adults, members of the community.

A few told me how honored they were to meet me and they raved over my memoir. It was the typical stuff, the things I normally dealt with in foreign towns with foreign people. They looked like they would remember this day for the rest of their lives. I forgot who they were and what they said. In the metaphorical notebook of my memories, they are merely a few small smudges.

We sat outside for dinner, on the steps or in the grass. It was a much less formal affair than I had expected. Nonetheless, we were all having a good time.

Cherry was letting Maudie try her makeup. Sodapop and the boys were roughhousing in the yard. Darrel, the older brother, was speaking to a girl, and was very focused.

It was just Ponyboy and I in the end, alone on the steps.

"Things get better, don't they?" He questioned, staring into the setting sun.

 _"Indeed, they do."_


End file.
